(Spoilers) Ghimlyt difficulty was a step down from the Burn...and that needs to stop

[Ilan]

As his main job? Those dungeons weren't exactly easy to do without using defensive cooldowns, at least in my experience. Unless he only went with really great friends who carried him, I am more inclined to believe that he lied to you than him using WAR as his main to 70 without knowing his abilities.

Oh you wouldn't believe how many people out there main something since ARR but don't know at all how to play it. Had a PLD back in HW where i had to explain that tabbing through the mobs and hitting each and every one of them is a way more effective option to hold hate than spamming flash and focus only one mob with his aggro combo. He felt insulted, called me out for beeing rude and a liar and left the dungeon after i tanked most of his pulls as DPS.

[linay]

Oh you wouldn't believe how many people out there main something since ARR but don't know at all how to play it. Had a PLD back in HW where i had to explain that tabbing through the mobs and hitting each and every one of them is a way more effective option to hold hate than spamming flash and focus only one mob with his aggro combo. He felt insulted, called me out for beeing rude and a liar and left the dungeon after i tanked most of his pulls as DPS.

That I can actually believe as it's more of a playstyle optimization issue, like tanks who are too lazy to use their cooldowns. I'm more surprised about tanks who say they don't know what their cooldowns are at level 70.

Then again, I must admit to having played BLM from 1 to past level 50 (maybe even reaching 60) without using fire spells in dungeons (because I hated having to manage MP) and never hearing any actual complaint. (I only started using fire spells after overhearing a discussion on BLM rotations between fellow FC members.) But I would think a healer at the very least would complain about a tank who doesn't use cooldowns (even if they can keep them alive without it) somewhere before that tank reaches level 70. So at the very least he would be acquainted with those abilities even if he still chose not to use them.

[Colino]

Then again, I must admit to having played BLM from 1 to past level 50 (maybe even reaching 60) without using fire spells in dungeons (because I hated having to manage MP) and never hearing any actual complaint. (I only started using fire spells after overhearing a discussion on BLM rotations between fellow FC members.)

For all the Gods, the legendary ice mage is real!

[ApolloGenX]

My parents play this game mostly for the story and crafting/gathering, dungeons really aren't their thing and struggle. I help them get through things, but Castrum flumis(sp) and the burn were absolute horrible to get them through just so they can watch a few more CS and go back to crafting/gathering. There is a time and a place for over the top mechanics and MSQ isn't it. Heck if the burn had been one of the side quest 4 man's i wouldn't be stating this opinion. I welcome getting them through this final 4man it will be a piece of cake. Anyway.

I think it's really neat you play this game with your parents. You couldn't do that with many games, it is why this game is different. I don't know how old you are or they are, but it's really great that you can spend time with them like that.

[Alexandre_Noireau]

It's only bad to players who fail to realize that at the end of the day, SE is trying to keep people playing. Make things too difficult, and they'd lose more subscriptions than they would making things too easy. So long as the vast majority of game income comes from casual players who just want simple fun rather than the tryhards wanting players to be more tryhard like them, that's the group that devs would best cater to. As for Ghimlyt, I'd say it's right where it needs to be as far as difficulty goes. No excessively punishing boss mechanics, no mobs whose hit boxes cause players to have to move out of the healer's range, the mobs are scaled to be enough of a general challenge to players going in at minimum item level and the boss fights themselves are in-line with scaling as well. The only real complaint I have is that the item level requirement for it is oddly well above the item level of gear that drops from the other dungeons in the expert roulette group.

Also, if you want content to be more difficult, you can do that by yourself. Run harder content at minimum ilvl or on a job you barely know anything about. It's far easier for the player to make regular content more challenging than devs to make content that would please everyone all the time.

I don't want content to be more difficult. God stop it.
I want the game to have a proper learning curve, and a proper difficulty curve. I't shouldnt be, that a level 70 dungeon is just as simple as a level 30 one, and it shouldn't be that level 70 players cannot be bothered to play their classes properly (is not like we have a massive customization system, we literally have only ONE way to play, the right one) yet they can progress and alter other's performance.

That said, games are meant to be challenging, if not, there is no point of them, you might aswell play facebook pet games or something, that barely pass as videogames anyway.

My parents play this game mostly for the story and crafting/gathering, dungeons really aren't their thing and struggle. I help them get through things, but Castrum flumis(sp) and the burn were absolute horrible to get them through just so they can watch a few more CS and go back to crafting/gathering. There is a time and a place for over the top mechanics and MSQ isn't it. Heck if the burn had been one of the side quest 4 man's i wouldn't be stating this opinion. I welcome getting them through this final 4man it will be a piece of cake. Anyway.

Then they shouldn't be doing this content, either they learn, improve, "git gud" or drop it, or dedicate to the plenty of other alternatives and hold the storyline for a while, options there are.
When did gaming became such a cattering to people that cannot be bothered to learn how to play, is basically asking for the game to be whatever.

Might aswell explain why we only get half-assed content all the time, SE has no idea of what to do since it has to pretend to design a game for so many, and is abandoning basic game design principles: Games have rules, you learn them and progress. Not the other way arround.

[RokkuEkkusu]

Kaiva, to be fair, two types of factors come into play here.

1. Both the Mist Dragon and the twins contain plenty of rehashed mechanics of their previous counterparts (Mist Dragon - Isgebind, Tioman, and Nunyenunc; Twins - Livia, Gaius, and Einhander). They are quite punishing to those who don't avoid aoes. In addition, both hit hard on their respective minimum item levels, which brings me to point two:

2. Gear really plays a factor of how hard a boss is. Back when patch 4.4 came out, most were only around the i340-i360 range. It was obvious Mist Dragon was going to hit hard with the tankbuster and the unavoidable aoe the first time around. But as players geared up, attacks didn't hit as hard and some mechanics are skipped.

By the time 4.5 came out, most were geared to the teeth at the i370-i380 range as 4.5 is a catch-up patch. The tankbusters and unavoidable aoes of the twins hit just as hard as that the mist dragon in their respective minimum item levels. But because most are really geared, the damage taken is pretty much negligible at this point.

In short, it's not that Ghimlyt Dark is easier because of having easier boss mechanics compared to stuff from the Burn. It's because most who currently do it are really geared ahead of time as a result of completing content in patch 4.4.

[Jijifli]

As his main job? Those dungeons weren't exactly easy to do without using defensive cooldowns, at least in my experience. Unless he only went with really great friends who carried him, I am more inclined to believe that he lied to you than him using WAR as his main to 70 without knowing his abilities.

To start I know from personal experience there's plenty of dungeons on the way you don't even need a tank (And if it has a buster, you don't have to cooldown it, to cover the rest.)

And second, this was shortly after the new tier came out, like week 2. He also did have mend 370 pieces, not every piece, but did. I actually ended up uh... going crazy in the chat when I saw that. I should'a put that info in too. My apologies.

Then again, I must admit to having played BLM from 1 to past level 50 (maybe even reaching 60) without using fire spells in dungeons (because I hated having to manage MP)

*Ree's in Lalafellin*

[kikix12]

But...when did being casual equate with being bad? All I hear is that casual does not equal bad in other posts but now its being used as an argument for faceroll content. Pick your poison.

You're the one that equated them, not me.

I said that it was made for casual, low-skilled players. Aka. players that are both casual and low-skilled. Just like a person can be a blue-eyed, red-haired human one can be a casual that lacks skills.

For people that still cannot see the difference...let me rephrase it.

This game was made for players with a low level of skill and not enough time or ability to get significantly better.

It takes maybe 5 minutes of research to learn your rotation, if you want to remain bad because you are casual, that's on you.

You are either fortunate enough to have no serious problems in your life and thus are ignorant of those that do...or are denying the reality, strong.

I won't even make excuses based on people that are genuinely crippled because I'm the first person that'll tell you that a games design should accommodate them only up till the point these accommodations interfere with good game. And in this game, I dare say the dumbing down does very much interfere.
However even more common matters like significant amount of stress, being overworked (and thus tired) or simply having a different learning method (some people learn by doing, others by reading about, yet others by listening about something etc.) all can interfere with learning rotation in five, ten or a hundred minutes. There are people that even after learning it will fail it frequently for whatever reason.

Rotations need to be muscle-learned. That requires time and again repeating them in quick succession. That's not something that yer typical person with limited time and having matters more important than a game can do. There are people that can indeed learn such rotation from just glancing over it. But I can assure you, it's not the standard. It's a skill.
I should know. My ability to learn such rotations grows duller with time and even though I could easily do that ten years ago, I cannot really do so without putting more time in. Age and what you do in life does significantly impact your abilities. A person that plays every day, even if only a short time, will be better at games in general than a person that games rarely or in bursts.

In the first part of your post about design, you just described every Final Fantasy in existence.

And every Final Fantasy in existence is rather easy to play through. The only place where difficulty starts rearing its head is the optional content...aka. Savage/Extreme/Ultimate.

Wait...no. The first some I believe were supposedly very difficult. But that's what I heard, I didn't actually play anything before V, and for V and VI I don't remember much either. But I don't recall V or VI being particularly difficult, really.
VII, VIII, IX, X and XII however were quite easy from beginning till the end if you did not stray off the main story. They could've been made significantly easier with just a bit of grinding.

The rotation system feels like I am playing a solo game even if I am in a group of 4-24 people because there is little synergy between me and another player and how our skills interact with each other on a moment by moment basis.

Duh. That's because spontaneous cooperation is a rather high-level skill. You'll see real professional in all sorts of fields struggle with it at times. And remember, I've been saying that this game caters to casual players among others. And many casual players cannot really give a set time frame for their in-game appearance so statics are not an option.

The enemy mechanics and environment are the novelty that drives my focus. Once the novelty runs out after doing said content multiple times, my focus goes bye bye.

This is inherent flaw of games with no defined end. It's avoidable only through randomized content, and that's ill-suited for MMO's in majority of cases.

Your third point is strictly subjective so I'll pass on responding to it.

If there ever came a point where an FF game is so difficult that I could not experience they story. I think I am done with FF at that point. Because the story, interesting open worlds, horizontal progression, and party synergy is what I enjoy most about this franchise. The latter three have already been stripped from the game. You take away my story and I am a sad panda.

And this is exactly what my point was. So I'm not sure whether you misunderstood my post, or I misunderstood the intention of your post referring to mine specifically.

One of the things that I'm seeing being mentioned a lot is that some people think I'm suggesting that raising the difficulty means making dungeons harder. Maybe I should've used a different term and said challenging. Challenging doesn't automatically equate to hard.

Challenging and hard are synonyms. Similarly "more challenging" and "harder" are synonyms, but "challenging" and "harder" are not.

Difficulty is a word that defines all the way from "win without doing anything" to "impossible". But when you say that you'd want something to be more "difficult" you are basically asking to make more people struggle. That does not in any way define how many people. You make things more difficult going from "do nothing and win" to "push a single button to win", even though the only people hurt are those that are unable to push that button.

The question is whether the difficulty is at the level that the developers intended. And I'd say...that it is rather average. There are both easier and harder things in the game prior. This dungeon does not have true-blue instant-kills as far as I remember (other than that final attack that I don't think anyone ever saw unless they wanted to) and that's the only part in which it is less difficult than say Burn. Most dungeons are easier than even the easiest trials though. So trials are where the developers up the stakes a bit. Not dungeons.

[Ilan]

That I can actually believe as it's more of a playstyle optimization issue, like tanks who are too lazy to use their cooldowns. I'm more surprised about tanks who say they don't know what their cooldowns are at level 70.

Then again, I must admit to having played BLM from 1 to past level 50 (maybe even reaching 60) without using fire spells in dungeons (because I hated having to manage MP) and never hearing any actual complaint. (I only started using fire spells after overhearing a discussion on BLM rotations between fellow FC members.) But I would think a healer at the very least would complain about a tank who doesn't use cooldowns (even if they can keep them alive without it) somewhere before that tank reaches level 70. So at the very least he would be acquainted with those abilities even if he still chose not to use them.

Its not really optimization its a matter of doing your job aka. holding hate. Now its not that big of a problem anymore since SE buffed the emnity generation and dps have more tools to reduce their emnity.

Obviously no one played good when they started playing, everyone who says otherwhise is straight up lying, but if you main something for years you should know the basics.

[Makeda]

I think it's usually better if MSQ dungeons and trials are a little easier than optional ones.

I'm more concerned that the Four Lords trials were a bit easier, than Gimlet Dark.